DS Reflections
by Thor2000
Summary: William Collins, son of Barnabas and Angelique Collins, encounters a psychic with his wife that exposes the secrets of his parents. This story follows DS X-Files.


Angelique gazed over the young adults in the room a second. Amanda was stretched out reading a magazine and J.R. and Jamison were hunched over watching Willie Loomis trying to fix the TV. Carolyn's youngest son, Chris, was in front of the empty fireplace with his pile of Lego's with his older sister, Lizzie, and her own daughter, Sara, through the back hall to the kitchen for another diet soda. No one in the house really watched a lot of TV except for the news, but today was going to be an event for the family because it wasn't everyday that one of the family got to appear in a syndicated TV series.

"He get it fixed yet?" Angelique's daughter, Sara Collins, had re-emerged quickly out of the back hall to the dining room.

"No..." Jamison answered.

"Dad," J.R. distracted his father again. "Why don't we just get cable?"

"Because..." Willie grumbled at obvious answers. "Collinwood is too far away out of town and there isn't enough residents this far out to lay a cable line so for now we are stuck with a satellite dish."

"Might as well be two tin cans and a piece of string." Jamison rolled his eyes as Angelique glided over. The blonde beauty leaned over past J.R. and looked at Willie.

"It'll be fixed on time, won't it?" Angelique answered. "You know how special this is to me. It isn't everyday my baby appears on TV."

"I could get done a lot faster if everyone would stop asking questions!" Willie snapped and started tightening another wire.

"I don't see what the big deal is." Quentin entered ahead of Barnabas and Maggie. The former governess shooed her daughter for Barnabas to sit on the sofa. "William's not the first member of this family to be on TV." He sipped his brandy.

"Quentin," Maggie smirked as she teased her husband. "Pumping gas in the background of a news report is not the same thing."

"Personally," Barnabas sat back between Amanda and Carolyn's daughter, Lizzie. "I never saw the big thing in TV: a waste of time. The violence, the degradation... A good book gives me all the imagination I need." 

"Speaking from one who is still stuck in the Eighteenth Century." Angelique moved Lizzie and sat next to her husband. She was getting to be more open with their secret past as long as she was clever about it and disguised them as playful ridicule and loving insults. Even Carolyn chuckled a bit as she heard the front door and turned to see who was coming into the main house.

Ally McBeal-Collins, William's wife, gently prodded their one-year-old daughter ahead as she removed her jacket and revealed herself into the sixth month of her second pregnancy. Carolyn grinned ear to ear as did all the female family members upon the newest member of the family. They pounced on the baby as even David's teenage daughter, Carrie, came hurrying down the stairs to coo over the tiny heiress.

"How you doing, Ally?" Angelique kissed her daughter-in-law.

"Just fine..." Ally pulled her hair out of her face as the tiny moppet-haired Georgia Collins fussed at the attention. Barnabas beamed to his granddaughter from a far as the tiny pixie with a mane of long curly hair broke free from Carolyn and pounced up into Amanda's arms.

"Well, I..." Sara was a bit jealous while her own niece preferred her cousin to herself. "I'm her only real aunt and she prefers Amanda?"

"Amanda thinks like a preschooler." The bitch came out of Lizzie Loomis as she folded her arms.

"I'm not late, am I?" Ally asked as she joined the rest of the family gathering in the drawing room.

"We're all going to be late if Willie can't figure out the dish." Quentin mused as Ally backed and sat down with her round belly. Angelique fussed over her as she made her comfortable in her son's absence.

"You haven't dropped that kid yet?" Jamison Collins, the avowed bachelor, tried to be funny as his Aunt Angelique and Ally shot him a look.

"Jamison!" Maggie chided her son.

"I'm kidding!"

"Hey," J.R. grinned. "Dad got a picture!"

"Way to go, dad." Lizzie sarcastically clapped her hands.

"Funny," Willie mused as the family gathered en masse to see one of their own on the TV. Barnabas and Angelique sat near their daughter-in-law as innocent Georgia adorably watched in silence on Maggie's lap to see her daddy on TV.

"Willie," Maggie watched as he adjusted the picture on the new TV and VCR. "You've got the right station, correct? We haven't missed it, have we?"

"WDTV out of Detroit." Willie caught the last of the credits of a syndicated "Cagney and Lacey" episode as a few commercials passed. "It should be any minute now."

"Are you positive?" Barnabas asked.

"William is a friend of one of these guys." Ally added. "He watches them almost everyday." She looked to the TV as a very Halloween-decorated show appeared. A gothic styled hostess in a low cut blouse turned to the viewing studio audience.

"Does everyone know what time it is?" She asked.

"Tool Time!" The audience roared with her.

"That's right, and now here he is...Tim the Tool Man Taylor!"

"I'd kill for her figure." Amanda Collins mumbled over the theme music.

"I'd kill for her figure too." J.R. Loomis grinned ear to ear as he and Jamison squeezed closer. Lizzie swatted her brother as the Detroit area TV Tool Man came out dressed as a vampire into a cobwebbed and darkened set. Barnabas looked to Angelique with a sigh as the bearded assistant on the show appeared in white face and a white suit.

"Yes," The host started. "I am Tim the Tool Man Taylor and here's my assistant, Al The Friendly Ghost Borland!" The audience cheered as Tim looked with envy.

"And all this week, we're saluting..." Sound effects provided the voice of ghoulish laughter chuckling away. "Halloween!" They both chorused.

"Today," Tim continued. "We've got one of our best friends in the world who's an expert in haunted houses. In fact, he's lived in one his entire life..."

"Collinwood." Al revealed. "One of Maine's top ten haunted locations… He's written eleven books on the subject and seven horror novels..."

"Let's give a big Tool Time welcome to William Benjamin Collins!" Tim and Al turned round to greet their guest. Emerging from back stage, William Collins appeared in a white shirt and blue jeans. Ally mused as she realized she could see his beard stubble.

"Daddy!" Little Georgia Collins grinned at the picture of her father as Maggie happily  
jostled her.

"Doesn't he look handsome?" Angelique whispered to Barnabas. "Every one should love him..."

"Yeah..." Amanda mumbled under her breath hoping no one heard her. She looked around and then to the TV as her distant cousin noticed Tim and Al.

"You guys dress like this all the time?" William asked his friends on the TV.

"It's casual Friday." Tim answered nonchalantly as Al pulled out a stool for William.

"William," He patted his buddy on the back. "Why don't you tell us about haunted houses for our audience?"

"Well," William tried to get used to being on a TV studio. "First off, they're not always deserted old houses..."

"Known in our business as little fixer uppers..." Tim squeezed in a laugh.

"He's right." Al took the subject seriously as William often invited him on area investigations. "They're sometimes schools, museums, restraunts, libraries..."

"Hotels, inns, town halls, military bases, resorts, golf courses and even the White House." William added as he impressed a few people in the studio audience.

"Hardware stores?" Tim asked.

"There are three known haunted hardware stores..." Collins tried to recall them from his web site. "In Georgetown, Colorado; Hendersonville, Tennessee and Leeds, England."

"Wow…" Al clapped with the audience as they both wondered if this was the one episode that he would not be maimed or electrocuted.

"And you've brought some of your favorite examples of spirit photography..." Tim revealed.

"Yes, I have..." They turned to a large monitor set up on the stage for the pictures. The first showed the cloudy image of a headless man in an otherwise perfect picture.

"That's from the Walker-Grundy House, a landmark in Minnesota." Collins revealed as the audience gasped at the reality of the subject matter. The picture changed to another of a black presence in a dirty hallway,

"Oregon's Hull House Mortuary..."

To a willowy figure of a woman looking out of a window at night, "A deserted house near Greencastle, Indiana." William answered.

An indistinct nurse in a dark hallway… "Vannacutt Sanitarium near Los Angeles…"

An image of faded people overcast over a study, "Seattle's Rose Red Mansion…"

A crowded side view of a stairway overlapped by transparent figures, "Highfield Hall on Cape Cod." 

Moving balls of light around a man in a hallway, "Colorado's Overlook Hotel."

…And then to a nearly perfect picture of a beautiful blonde woman. Behind her was a phantom bride on a staircase.

"My all time favorite." Collins revealed. "Josette Collins, the ghost of Collinwood."

"Who's that beautiful woman with her?" Heidi the Tool Time Girl asked.

"That's my mom." Collins confessed.

"That's your mother!" Al, Tim and Heidi refused to believe his mother was so perfect. In Collinwood, Angelique's ego went up a notch from watching the program while Carolyn and Maggie looked at her and acknowledged her ego. Sara kissed her mother proudly to have a beautiful mother.

"It must be hard to get pictures like those." Tim was a bit unnerved by the photos. "I imagine you use special equipment."

"Sure," William motioned to a table where the gear he used was displayed. "To start with, I often wear this. It's a ten-pound pack with built in lights and a 500-watt battery. It can project a powerful beam of light at least a hundred feet and support another fifty pounds."

"I imagine you have to be in shape to wear it." Tim started sliding it on and crashed to the floor.

"Exactly…" Collins continued as Al lifted Tim up. "Here we have an electronic thermometer for reading exact temperature changes, infra-red lenses for cameras with sensitive film, motion sensor switches and this is a device USI created especially for me. It detects and reads both invisible light and electro-magnetic fields..."

"As well as carpenter's levels to see if physical phenomenon is caused by a sinking foundation or warped floors." Al added.

"Forget that stuff..." Tim scowled as he looked for things with more power. "How about those proton packs and laser cages you guys use to catch and contain ghosts?" William and Al shared a glance as they stared at Tim. The Tool Man noticed even the audience chuckling.

"Tim," Al had to say it. "That was a movie. Even I know that!"

"I knew that." Tim looked briefly a bit simple as Al picked up another piece of equipment that resembled a set of headphones.

"Now this..." William pointed out the gear Al was pulling on to his ears. "...Has been frequency selected to detect and record noises that only dogs can hear."

"Really," Tim looked at Al. "Is this where you turn it on?" He flipped a switch as Al screamed from the ambient unheard noises in the studio hitting him at once. Conversations, gear humming, conversations, background noises...

"Arrrgh!"

Tim and William watched as he hit the floor in the fetal position. Tim grinned innocently into the camera as William looked at him and went to Al's aide.

"Uhhhh..." Tim grinned apologetically. "We'll be right back after these messages from Binford Tools..."

PART 2

The cab turned off Seaview Drive and toward the house it was named for. William Collins looked out as the huge white and blue trimmed house reared over him as if he were another victim approaching Castle Dracula. He had owned the house since he was a boy of eight and since he was a teenager, he had restored much of it by hand and his own time. Caretakers from the family estate came and tended its once weed-grown lawns. The wall lining the drive had been carefully rebuilt and the trees planted by him from saplings. The house didn't really come alive until he had someone to move into it with him. Freed of his parents, William looked with pride to the house his wife had made a home.

"See you, Will." Zach Parker, the cab driver, had gone to Collinsport High School with William.

"See you at the next reunion..." Collins pulled the duffel bag he used to travel with over his shoulder and hiked up the walk to the front landing. Still empty parts of the house watched him as if he was an intruder as he tramped up the porch. With the cab pulling away behind him, the wayward husband returned home.

"Daddy..." Tiny Georgia broke from her grandmother on the floor and grabbed her father's leg. William dropped his pack, lifted his adorable daughter and pulled her tight as she hugged him.

"Hi monkey," He kissed her and looked to his mother. Angelique Collins looked up as she picked up baby toys. "Hi mom," He kissed her too. "Where's Ally?"

"She's upstairs taking a nap." The beautiful blonde grandmother beamed to her pixyish granddaughter and stood up straight with a crick in her back.

"Did you see the show?"

"I did." Angelique sipped the grape juice she'd been slowly drinking from since she had arrived. "The whole family's so proud of you. I've never seen you so wise, articulate, professional..."

"Mom..."

"Well," Angelique grinned proudly. "I'm so proud of you. Is your friend okay?"

"Al?" William talked as he entered the kitchen beyond the living room and pulled out a soda from the refrigerator. Georgia tried to hold on to him for a piggyback ride, but he set her down on the edge of the island counter of the kitchen. "It was only up to fifty percent. His hearing was back after a few hours."

Georgia started whining to be picked up as he reclaimed her.

"Would you like to baby-sit Georgia tonight?" He continued.

"I'd love too." Angelique came in close and stared into the big brown eyes of the one-year-old. Georgia cooed and giggled at her grandmother's funny face. "What's going on?" 

"I always take Ally out when I've been gone a while." William sipped his root beer. "It sort of makes it up to her and paves the way for my next trip."

"Is that why you do it?" Ally appeared in the doorway to the back hall. Waddling a bit as she stroked her round belly, she seemed very pleased to have her husband home as she glided up and kissed him. Angelique watched a bit out of place at their endless romance.

"Yeah," William stared into his wife's brown eyes. "I thought you would like some dinner out and then..."

"And then..." Ally and Angelique chorused knowing his penance for chicanery.

"A friend of mine named Steven Neal saw the show too." William confessed. "He sent me a wire asking for an expose on phony psychics and then told me of a psychic on the highway to Crabapple Cove who may be a fraud. He wants me to check her out and I thought you could come with me." 

"Why?" Ally narrowed her eyes at him curiously.

"Because I'm less conspicuous as couple." William put Georgia down as she started getting restless. "Interested?"

"Okay..." Ally needed water as she pulled a cold bottle from the fridge.

"Oh I do wish you'd be careful, dear." Angelique folded her arms and shifted her weight to one leg. "Even a phony psychic can be dangerous."

"I've done it before..." William tried to dissuade her fears.

PART 3

After dinner at the Worsham's, a new restraunt that recently popped up in Collinsport to rival the seafood buffet owned by David Collins, William Collins drove his wife as per directions given him out of town to inspect the so called psychic bilking innocents. Ally watched as the woods closed in around the car on to the lonely country road as random car lights passed by only every eight to ten minutes. He turned off on to another side road as she noticed a sign for palm readings and séances just a few dozen yards from a dilapidated old mansion obscured by the trees. Two security lights over the circular driveway in front illuminated the once grand old house as Ally looked from the old resident to her husband and back again. The house was obviously picked for its remoteness and solitude as she halfway expected the Frankenstein Monster to walk the grounds between the hanging black walnut trees. The car rolled to a stop on the bare gravel driveway behind two more cars in front.

"Just how..." Ally pulled her wrap as a cold breeze wafted around her and her unborn child. "Do you expose a phony psychic?" She looked back at her husband.

"Easy." William closed the driver's side door. "I lie like a bad rug." He grinned as the con-man side of his personality came shining through. Still a bit of the romantic, he took her arm under his as they headed to the front of the old house under tall pillars supporting the front porch. A shadow watching from the top window above the front porch moved away as they advanced. "I'm going to have to say a lot of things to throw her off."

"Why?"

"Real psychics usually don't advertise themselves." William continued. "They actually attempt to keep normal lives. That's why I always thought James Vander Praagh was more legit than John Edwards. Oh, try not to make any stupid faces that would make them suspect anything." Ally looked at him a bit nervously and a bit cold as their feet rapped across the wood under their feet. She had never been taken on one of his ghost hunts or investigations before and she was not at all interested in being in this one. Her eyes noticed a curtain move as the door opened.

"Yes?" A face remained hidden behind the door.

"Hi." Collins answered seriously and emotionally as he became a bit of an actor. "I'm Billy Thomas, this is my lovely wife, Georgia..."

Ally dropped her jaw and looked away as she tried not to talk. The real Billy and Georgia Thomas were going to love this story if she survived it.

"We're here for the séance?"

"You're just in time." The disembodied voice opened the door wider as it showed them in. Ally stepped in out of the cold and into the drafty edifice as she looked around. The young lady with them pulled the black shawl at the door back and led the way to a drawing room to the side lit by candles. Several other people sitting around a round table stopped discussing whatever they were talking about and looked up as William and Ally were directed to seats. Their mysterious guide slipped off behind some beads hanging in a side arch and vanished in the dark.

"Hi..." One of the other guests spoke up. "This your first time?"

"Yes." Ally looked around grateful William was with her. She wondered if she should call him Billy.

"You'll love it." The young lady looked briefly to her female companion. "I'm Mallory Moore and this is my Aunt Jenny. And this is..."

"James and Cindy Walsh." James shook William's hand as his wife sat by him. "We've never done this either, but some friends told us about it, and...Well, we thought we'd give it a try."

"I lost my husband in a motorcycle accident." Mallory admitted.

"We lost our son." The Walshes admitted. "You?"

"I lost a loved one too." Collins lied again as Ally listened solely for her amusement. He wasn't giving much free info without knowing who was working for the would-be psychic. "I haven't been able to think since..."

"My guests..." It was an older woman much different than the girl who had admitted the six strangers. She emerged from the dark hallway wearing layers of hanging necklaces over a long dark dress with baroque designs. "You have all arrived here because you have all lost someone dear. But first, I must ask for the monetary fee up front. You see I cannot channel any spirits unless the sin of materialism is exposed and the vibrations are removed."

"This is legit, right?" Cindy Walsh asked as her husband exposed five hundred dollar bills. Mallory looked to her aunt as she was hesitant to produce the money.

"It's okay, princess..."

"Legit?" The psychic sat before them. "I am in touch with the other side! I have walked where spirits fear to tread and you ask if I'm legit? If you do not believe my power, then you may go now!"

Ally narrowed her eyes wanting to get this psychic in a courtroom to poke at her claims under the power of a courtroom. William meanwhile slid out his ten fifty dollar bills and watched the psychic grab them up and stuff them greedily in her pouch. The candles seem to draw the lights low as she put her hands to the table.

"Hands to the table..." She spoke out loud. "The energies tonight are quite strong. So many wishing to speak from the other side..." Ally listened as she thought she heard thunder.

"Isn't there supposed to be a prayer to protect us from evil spirits?" Collins asked.

"Mr. Thomas, have you done this before?" Mallory asked as William sort of silently tilted his head as a response.

"I have already said all the prayers we need." Their psychic answered as she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Hands to the table as I call out the spirits of your loved ones…"

"It's getting cold." Jenny Keaton shivered a bit as her niece felt the chill.

"The spirits are here." The dark room had enveloped the room so far that Ally could barely see the psychic. She looked to where William was as he squeezed her hand for assurance. It was just a bit spooky for her as the psychic moaned herself into a trance.

"So many of them, so many..." She gasped while something moved through the air unseen. The Walshes could feel the breeze in its wake. "I sense several coming close at once... It's a young man..."

"Brandon?" Cindy asked desperately eager. "Is it Brandon?"

"He's tall and handsome..." The psychic described what she thought she saw.

"He has brown eyes... He died in a motorcycle accident..."

"Nick?" Mallory couldn't believe it. "Is it Nick?"

William Collins had a sneaky hunch it was.

"Yes..." The psychic confirmed it as tears came down Mallory's face. "He loves you very much!"

"Nick..." Mallory looked to the darkness. "Our savings! I can't find them! Where is it!"

"So many spirits..."

"No, I must know!" Mallory was anxious to speak to her lost husband.

"So many pulling him away..." The psychic continued fishing for characters. "I see a young girl drowned in a lake... An old man wandering aimlessly... A woman in search of her son..."

"Mom?" William Collins recognized his invitation to this farce.

"Yes, darling..." The ghost of his supposed mother spoke through the psychic. "I am here..." Ally rolled her eyes in disbelief then looked to the foyer. There was a transparent figure in white standing out there. It looked like a Civil War soldier with his chest blown out.

"It doesn't sound like you, mother." William talked to the spirit of his mother. "Where's your Russian accent?"

"It..." The psychic was caught unaware. "Doesn't exist on this side."

"Is Aunt Tilly there with you?" William continued as if he believed. "You know I loved her so much!"

"Oh yes..." The spirit continued speaking through the psychic's body. "We speak often about you..."

"Mother," William sat back. "Have you forgotten? Aunt Tilly was my Rottweiler!" Ally cracked up laughing as the Walshes looked at each other. Mallory was confused as William stood up.

"Ladies and gentlemen..." He started relighting the trick candles. "I'm sorry, but my mother is very much still alive. She is not Russian and my name isn't really Billy Thomas. This lady's a fraud."

"What?" James Walsh was incredulous.

"Hidden microphones picked up details of what the psychic had to claim." Collins found one hanging as decoration in a tassel in tapestry on the wall. "I heard the gas kick on pumped to cool the room."

"But the Civil War soldier?" Cindy asked.

"Magician's trick." William tapped the pane of glass the image was projected on to in the darkness. "A associate standing in reflected illumination out of sight. You can be sure I'll put all this in the newspaper."

"I want my money back!" Mallory screamed first.

"What kind of crook are you!" Cindy Walsh screamed next. "How can you do this!"

"William Collins!" The psychic screamed angrily as everyone but him rushed her. "Your mother was a witch and your father a vampire! A dark curse exists on your family and descendants! You will never be happy as long as you poke into affairs not of your own!"

"Ally." William escorted his wife to the front door as the psychic was overcome by screams and profanity. He found his way to the front door and escorted his way out. Ally was still giggling as he motioned her to the car.

"That was not bad entertainment." She commented as she was returned to the car.

"Yeah," William got in the driver's seat and paused with the keys in his hand. He looked to his wife. "Wait a second, how did she guess my real name?"

PART 4

Sara Collins looked at her niece in the high chair next to her and marveled at her tiny fingers picking up pieces of carrots and corn and eating them. She had just fallen in love with her brother's little girl as Ally McBeal-Collins paused between moments of conversation to share her meal with her daughter. Tiny Georgia just cooed and made efforts to talk as Angelique beamed to her grand-daughter and remembered what it was like when her children were babies. Sometimes she wished she could have more children, but grandchildren were even better. When they became a problem, she could send them home.

"Ally," She looked up. "More Brussels sprouts?" She held up the few left in the bowl.

"I'm okay." Ally mentioned as she wiped her daughter's face. Angelique turned the bowl to the other direction and dumped the last of the vegetables on to her son's plate rather than waste them. With William around, there were never leftovers.

"Sara, would you like to take little Georgia upstairs to your room?" Ally pulled the tray off the high chair.

"Sure." Sara looked briefly to her father. The former prom queen cooed and giggled with the baby as Barnabas as well shining to see yet another generation of Collinses on the estate. His son was the first of the generation to follow Carolyn and David, and now Georgia was the first of a generation to follow his. "I can't believe someone so perfect came from my brother's loins..."

"Hey!" The rivalry of brother and sister continued.

"So," The scion of the family leaned back in his chair as the spirits of his parents stared down from their portraits hanging in the Old House dining room. Barnabas dabbed a bit of gravy from his lips as Angelique took his empty plate. "Are you two hoping on a son or another daughter? I would love to have a grandson named after me."

"It's going to be another girl." Ally rubbed her round belly nearly obscured by the table. "I was thinking of Tabitha as a name."

"Samantha's going to love that..." Angelique mumbled under breath and poured her husband some more coffee. Samantha Spellcraft was a very old friend she had made in England and she just so happened to have a daughter named Tabitha.

"William," Barnabas turned to us son who had been deep in thought all evening. "In case I haven't said it in a while, I've very proud of you." He paused as William looked up. "You've picked a beautiful wife, your daughter is something to be proud of and I was impressed with your newspaper article this morning. I thought you made a very good point on how phony psychics use the grief and emotions of others to make sinful profits."

"Thanks, dad." The young man finished his stuffed pepper as Ally looked across to him.

"Sweetheart..." Angelique pulled out the chair next to her boy. "You've been uncharacteristically quiet all evening. Is something bothering you?"

"No, well..." William looked at his mother, to his wife and then to his father as he tried to explain the demon on his shoulders. "I wonder if I was wrong. She knew my real name and I don't remember mentioning it..."

"Well," Ally sipped her tea. "Your picture is on your books. Maybe she recognized you."

"I guess..." William dabbed the last of his mashed potatoes on his roll as he cleaned his plate. "But it was the insult she hurled. She just didn't swear at me. She called you a vampire, dad, and mom a witch."

Angelique shot a worried look at her husband. Barnabas was alerted by the same distraction as he felt his defenses and secrets pulled out into the open. He felt naked as a history he hoped to forget was jerked back to haunt him from the past. Angelique gasped as her hand lightly shook as she picked up the dirty dishes.

"Mom," Ally noted the reactions. "Do you need some help?"

"Just a little, dear..." Angelique appeared white and shaken. "Just help me get these to the kitchen..." The ageless homemaker with perfect blonde hair stepped back as Barnabas cleared his throat. He was searching his mind for something to say as his son sat before him.

"Well," Barnabas nervously sipped his coffee while eyes darted around the room. "I've been called a lot of things, but... what did she say? A vampire?"

"Yeah," William looked at his father curiously as the conversation became uncomfortable for them both. "And I've been thinking of things I've never wanted to bring up. For one, you remember that family tree I did in high school of the English branch of the family?"

"Yes." Barnabas nervously sat listening as he tried to think of answers.

"I found the exact same pictures on the Internet a few years ago with different names on them." William revealed. "They weren't really Collinses. It was some family named... Spellcraft." 

"Oh yes," Barnabas grinned a bit and began hastily improvising answers and reasons. "I'm afraid that's my fault. They... Lived on Cardogan Square with your great grandfather. I must have identified them wrong; I'm sorry."

"I also read on the Internet that there were vampire scares in Collinsport in 1795, 1840 and 1897." William mentioned. "Didn't we have 'ancestors' who visited the estate during those years?"

"Aren't you forgetting some details?" Barnabas decided to get defensive. "If I remember my folklore, vampires can't be seen in mirrors or go out in sunlight. There's some... Tomfoolery about being near crosses. You've seen me in church on occasion, out in the daylight and shaving in the mirror."

"Yeah," William leaned back as he forced a little smile as relief. "And they can't have children either."

"Exactly."

"But..." William started again. "You look so much like your ancestor, and there are so few pictures of you and none as a child. And mom? She looks exactly like her ancestor in that portrait; the one who escaped to Martinique after being branded a witch?"

"William," Barnabas was suddenly not so pleased to have a son with a gifted intelligence. "If you are trying to insinuate that your mother is over three hundred years old, she'll rap you across the mouth. Not only that, but we've been over this many times. Paintings are not photos. I resemble my ancestor as your mother does hers. Our family lost everything in the war...World War Two. Not the Civil War, the Revolutionary War or, god forbid, the Trojan War. There has always been a logical explanation for everything that has happened. I swear, you've pursued so many ghosts that you're trying to find them in your own family, and quite frankly, I'm disgusted. We are your family. We are not a group of... half dead ancients kept alive by pagan spells."

"I'm sorry."

"How about..." Angelique heard her cue as she grinned warmly and came through the swinging door to the kitchen. "Dessert in the parlor… Blueberry cheesecake?"

"Yummy." Ally looked at William and handed him his bowl. Her husband acted as the wind had been knocked from him. It been years since his father had verbally abused him. "Are you okay?"

"Sure," William flashed his steely grin. "Dad's just setting me straight."

"It happens." Ally lead the way to the parlor as Angelique stayed back a few steps. Barnabas rose from his seat at the head of the dinner table emotionally spent still sipping his coffee.

"Well," Angelique asked him.

"I think I set him straight." Barnabas gasped secretly to her.

"Thank god," The former witch clutched her heart and caught her breath. "That's the closest we've ever been. Damn that psychic..."

PART 5

Carolyn Stoddard-Loomis sat at the small desk in the Collinwood drawing room paying the household bills much as her mother before her once did. It had been around ten years since her mother Liz Collins-Stoddard had passed away and some things hadn't changed. Some of the roles had changed, but still, life went on. The blonde petite mother of three scribbled her name on the last check and sealed it in an envelope as she heard hurried steps outside in the foyer. She turned her head and rose to her feet in one gesture as her daughter and niece scrambled for the door and grabbed their jackets in a rush.

"Hold it!" She called out and narrowed her eyes.

"So close at yet so far..." Lizzie whispered to her cousin Carrie.

"Turn around." Carolyn noticed them hiding something in their coats. Lizzie and Carrie spun in complete circles as they found themselves again facing the front entrance of Collinwood. There was a bit of tittering laughter between them as they shared a moment with themselves.

"You know what I mean." Carolyn asked again.

Lizzie sighed and turned around. There was nothing on her she had not been born with, but Carrie's t-shirt was about to burst as she sported two water balloons in her bra. Her chest was much larger and much more rounder, actually for the first time overshadowing Lizzie for the first time. Her face had been made up to make her seem a bit older. Carolyn sighed and rolled her eyes at the spectacle.

"Are you taking her to meet high school boys?" She asked as she refused to admit the ingenuity of the girls. "She's almost five years younger than you! Lizzie, what goes through your mind?"

"Air?" Carrie mumbled under breath as Lizzie shot her a look. The nineteen year old Madonna wanna-be glared at her and back to her mother.

"Go upstairs, clean off the make-up and put the balloons in the sink." Carolyn feared where they had gone if she were not present. "And no throwing them at your brother!"

"Always one step ahead of me..." Lizzie rehung her jacket and turned round as Carrie bounced and jiggled up the stairs. She sort of felt older, but she still wished she could have gotten a look from the guys who hung out at the Blue Whale when she arrived all filled out. She smirked a silly grin as she imagined their faces.

Carolyn briefly remembered her teenage years and all the tissue she must have gone through to get Joe Haskell or Tom Jennings to notice her. Nowadays, she instead fretted on the little lines around her eyes and wondering why she felt older than she was then wished what she would have to do to look half as good as Angelique. If Maggie and her had her secrets, maybe guys would have car accidents after leering at them too.

Carolyn paused outside the study and stepped back. She looked past the door to the person she noticed as Angelique's son sat buried in the chair. A stacked sandwich on the plate next to him with two small pickles, his mind was immersed in the lore of one of the books from the shelf. She gazed upon the gold letters: "A History of the Collins Family 1674 - 2000."

"Always with your head in a book..." She giggled to herself as he looked up. "Where's Ally?"

"I ran her home to rest..." William bit a piece off his sandwich. "Sara and Amanda have Georgia. I just wanted to look some things up..."

"I sometimes forget how grown up you are now." Carolyn turned and sat near the fireplace in the room. "To this day, I still picture you as that funny brown-eyed little menace with a rock in your hand who followed me around with a big crush. You were so disenchanted when I started cutting my hair short." She reflected on her memories a second. "And now here you are... tall, handsome, married to a wonderful girl with a daughter and another on the way..."

"Yeah..." William blushed a bit.

"Looking up your family tree?" Carolyn peeked in on the book. "I wish..." William sat forward and bit into his sandwich once more. "There isn't anything on the English branch of the family in these books. It mentions the first Barnabas who went to England, his son and daughter who visited in 1840, another Barnabas IV who was on the estate in 1897, his daughter in the 1930s and then nothing till dad arrived here in 1967."

"Oh well..." Carolyn caressed imaginary wounds in her neck as her eyes nervously wandered. "Your father is the expert in that. Why don't you ask him about it?"

"What I'd like to do..." William bit into his pickle and talked as he gestured with it. "Wait till after the baby is born and take Ally to England. Maybe they have some records."

"Yes..." Carolyn's eyes wandered the room again. "Uh... You could ask your father where to..."

"Did you ever read anything about a vampire scare here in 1897?" William asked his favorite aunt.

"Vampires?" Carolyn looked at him nervously. "Why did you ask that?"

"I wonder if there was any connection to the Barnabas Collins that was here at that time." William asked out loud. Standing stuck to her spot, Carolyn felt her heart skip a beat trying to think of something to say.

"Carolyn?" Another voice interceded. The sweetheart of Collinwood jumped with a start as Quentin Collins poked his head in to the Collins study. William looked at his aunt then to his favorite uncle.

"Have you seen my son?" Quentin asked. "He was supposed to bring my van back and he's still gone with it!"

"I'll tell him when I see him." Carolyn stood and pushed him forward as William watched. She looked back as she and Quentin stood in the back hall outside the study in covert conversation and worried hushed tones.

"We have a problem." She whispered fretfully. "He's asking about his ancestors and about... vampires."

"That's not good." Quentin swallowed his comfort and rounded his eyes in fear. "He looked toward William and then to Carolyn. "Go tell Angelique and Barnabas. I'll see if I can confuse him."

"Just when I thought this stuff was forgotten!" Carolyn hissed under her breath a second and turned on her heel for the foyer. Quentin pulled his hand frustratingly back over his salt and pepper hair and flashed his cocky grin as if here an actor waiting in the wings. He re-entered the study as the same wisecracking uncle who annoyed his wife and children.

"So," He clapped his hands. "Looking up your ancestors, are we?"

"Yeah," William finished his sandwich and placed the plate out of the way as he checked inconsistencies between books. "I'm looking up background facts on vampire attacks here in Collinsport. Did any stories like that pass down through your branch of the family?"

"No..."

"But what about those stories you told when I was growing up?" William pressed on. "The one-handed wizard, the princess from the portrait, the sorceress born in fire... You said once your father told them to you. Maybe he based them on real incidents?"

"I don't remember anything about vampires." Quentin mused. "Look, people were superstitious back them. They made up things for everything."

"Yeah..." William popped the family journal shut and stood to return it to the shelf. He glanced on a copy of his mother's novel nearby and recalled the TV plot created from it for that short-lived series with actor Ben Cross and actress Joanna Going. It was about a wealthy family whose ancestor was released from his tomb by a fortune hunter and the witch who cursed him out of love. Maybe he had been looking in the wrong direction all this time. If the novel was true, then it meant his mother had known the truth for over all these years! Was she the witch, the princess who fell off the cliff or someone else!

"What about the other vampire attacks in Collinsport?" He asked with his back to his uncle.

"It was before you were born." Quentin looked at him. "Nicholas Blair was a Satanist and a serial killer. He people as part of ritual sacrifices. It had nothing to do with vampires or…"

"When did this happen?" William suddenly found himself stuck in facts he hadn't read. "When dad arrived in the Sixties?"

"No..." Quentin stopped realizing he may have made a mistake. "About five years after..."

"When the first William Collins arrived from England!"

"Look!" Quentin grabbed William by his black sweater and acted as if he were threatening him. His eyes were hard, his voice in a panicked demanding tone. "You forget this now. There are no such things as vampires, witches, werewolves or demons. You have a family that loves you and a wife and child waiting for you. We've been nothing but a normal typical New England Family."

"With a chequered history?" William realized he had stumbled on something. He freed himself from his uncle's hand and stepped back as they stared at each other wondering whom the other person was. Each wondered what the other was going to do as William turned out and marched toward the foyer. He stopped a minute at the portrait of the first Barnabas Collins, glanced over it a second and then grabbed his jacket near the door and made his way out. Quentin gasped where he was and rolled his eyes in fearful disbelief.

"Angelique's going to kill me." He muttered. "If only I was that lucky..."

PART 6

Angelique groaned under her breath as she sat in her chair. She pulled her long blonde hair back across her head after listening to Carolyn and turned to look at her husband. Barnabas sighed a bit as he forlornly looked at her for answers he didn't have.

"You handled it, huh." Angelique replied emotionally wrought.

"That's your son, not mine." Barnabas mumbled out loud as Carolyn stood and paced a bit before the mantle.

"I'm too old to go through this again." She griped just a bit. "Things have been normal, or at least what passes for normal here, for almost thirty years. I can't live through secrets and sneaking around and lying and... My god, I think Maggie's the only one except for David and the kids who have no idea as to the crap we went through the last time this happened. I'm not living this again."

"It's a secret that refuses to die." Barnabas lightly groaned at his past sins. Angelique had probably a bit more to conceal. She had spent years getting to where she was now. She wasn't letting it all go. There had to be some way to kill the skeletons in the closets. Carolyn might have had scratched the surface of some of the things to have happened, but she still didn't know exactly everything, and now William in his need to know the truth and solve what he considered a mystery was about to burst open the past all over again and spread it all out in the open.

"He doesn't know everything... yet. Damn, why does he have to be so inquisitive?" Angelique felt her heart pumping faster already. "We need some sort of... damage control. Yes, we can stop him from going further. Where is he now?" 

"With Quentin…" Carolyn answered as she stood before Barnabas in his chair.

"Problem." The front doors of the Old House opened and closed before Quentin entering. He entered the parlor and stopped a few feet from Carolyn as he tried to talk to Barnabas and Angelique about their son the would-be vampire killer. "I think I made a big mistake."

"Mistake!" Carolyn snapped. "What did you do? Where's William!"

"Well," Quentin lowered his head in embarrassment and crossed the room closest to Barnabas. "I may have accidentally mentioned the attacks in 1971 at the opening of the Historical Center..."

"After Julia, Stokes and I returned from 1840!" Barnabas jumped his feet. He had never seen things degrade so fast.

"Damn that psychic!" Angelique was in such a panic she couldn't think straight. There had to be a way to stop the proverbial snowball from rolling. She knew her son. She knew how obsessed he became with things. Barnabas stood before her trying to think of something, but this was his son. He couldn't just make him disappear. He looked at Carolyn again and Quentin trying to find a way to stop the future owner of Collinwood from destroying the current family. The phone rang on the table as Angelique turned and grabbed it. 

"William, darling, is that... Oh, Ally..." Angelique's blue eyes shifted nervously as she hoped her daughter in law could not sense the tension in her voice. "Well, no, he isn't here. Have you checked the... He isn't at the main house or the library? Have you called the Blue Whale? You know he loves his lobster. Okay, sweetheart... if he calls here, I'll send him home." She hung up the phone.

"William?" Carolyn stood by in stifled shock and took a deep breath.

"She's looking for him."

"Damn that psychic!" Quentin looked at the bottle of sherry and refused the luxury of pouring a drink for once. Angelique suddenly cooled and relaxed as if she had a vision.

"Angelique?" Barnabas delicately took her hand.

"You better go to Ally." The former witch gasped under breath as her head lightly twitched from the stress. "I know where our son is... and things are about to get much worse... so much worse I don't think even I can move..."

The sky was overcast as a black trans-am drove over the rolling hills of Eagle Hill Cemetery. It stopped near the peak as William Benjamin Collins stopped his car, set his parking brake and grabbed a few tools from the back seat. The sky was overcast and the leaves were being blown over the markers as they rattled like dead bones. The trees in the distance were bending in the breeze as William stood over the grave and remains of Ben Stokes and zipped up his jacket. He marched past long dead remains of forgotten Collinsport residents and ascended the hill to the mausoleum. It was a good steep walk before it leveled off and he was covered in shade by trees. The names of Thomas Jennings and Gerard Stiles whirred past him as the gate on the mausoleum squeaked like some warning to his arrival. He stood before the three tombs inside.

"Grandpa, Grandma, Aunt Sara..." He acknowledged them. "Please forgive me for what I do..." He passed between them to the large maw in back and down three small steps. Family legend said it was once a secret room, but it had been reopened for another crypt. The wayward son glared up at the name on the additional crypt.

"William Benjamin Collins 1950-1971"

He raised his iron stake and rested it to the stone. The emotion left his face as he glared determinedly and lifted the hammer in his other hand. Thunder and lightning cracked as he made the first blow to the hardened stone seal...

PART 7

Her heart heavy with fear and concern, Angelique drove her red Jaguar over the narrow back roads of Collinsport as rain pelted her little car. She turned through the gates of Eagle Hill Cemetery as her car engine roared past tombstones and grave markers shooting past her in a blur. She headed straight up the hill as she sighted the big black shape before her and roared to a stop. It was her son's abandoned trans am. She pushed open her car door and pulled her coat shut as she ran between the raindrops slowly increasing overhead. She was already drenched to the skin as she reached the mausoleum and swung open the metal gates. The wind rushing through it sounded like the phantoms of the dead welcoming her. Shaking her head, she refused to accept what was happening and stopped in the low arch and screamed in shock at the open casket before her. She covered her mouth in horrified silence at the dried out corpse still within it. Its eyes were empty holes and its dark hair had become flattened to its scalp. It's dried out limbs still crossed over its chest, it grinned back to her as its mouth had stretched open to reveal its clenched teeth. Angelique started to recatch her breath as her head turned away. The tomb had been violated; its casket opened with its end propped up on the wall, she realized she was too late. She realized there was someone else with her.

"Mom?" William sat on the floor in front of the mess he had created. He stared at the body in the casket almost in shock. He listened as his mother started crying in grief over feelings she never lost.

"I found something very interesting about my so-called uncle." William's voice cracked a bit as he talked. "For one, he was buried with a digital watch. Something they didn't have in 1971. Two, his driver's license says..." He flipped it open as he read it again in its deteriorated state. "He was born September 9, 1971. That's the same day I was born. And three, he has a..." He choked back the shock. "Silver blade impaled... In his chest..."

Angelique continued crying against the wall as the rain poured outside the mausoleum. She didn't want to live this again nor did she want to be reminded of the intense misery caused by her years of dark activity. She was losing it all over again.

"I wonder what he'd say if I removed the stake..." William threatened.

"No!" His mother glared at him.

"Now..." William pressed on in his shocked stupor as he sat on the stone floor under the coffin. "I can deal with a mother who is a witch... I mean it's kind of cool when you think about it. I've met witches before, after all." He admitted. "But... Having a father... who was once a vampire?" His voice strained as he started losing it. "That's a bit harder to take. That and then finding..." He stopped and tried to find the words as he tried to talk.

"How dare you!" Angelique forced out as the rain pounded the concrete walls outside the tomb.

"What else have you not told me!" William stood up angry and speechless. "What else are you keeping from me and my family! Is that me in that coffin!"

"Yes... and no, " She paused for a breath. "You appeared in 1971 from another darker possible future as your father and I were getting ready to repeat our marital vows." Angelique's eyes were full of tears. Her heart had never been so full of unhappy emotion. "You were desperate to find out why you had become the way you were... A man named Nicholas Blair had killed your father in that other timeline and cursed you with a spell I had created years ago... He was desperate to destroy the Collins family..." A confusing tangle of events both backwards and forwards in time came rushing back to haunt her.

"In the future of that other timeline," Angelique desperately tried to calm her son. "You never had a father. Nor a Uncle Quentin, you never even married..." Her voice was tragic and emotional as her tears streamed down her face. She continued reaching for William as he backed from her. "You came back to change things. Julia tried to cure you, but... before we would know it would be successful, you gave your life to safe us and create a better future for your unborn past self, the present you have now. You wouldn't believe the horrors that almost faced the family until you changed the past."

"You mean..." William forced himself to look at the bodyin the grave he had violated. "That's some... alternate counterpart of... myself! I went back in time?"

"Some..." Angelique tried to think clearly as she shook her head. "Stairway that appears in the basement... it was destroyed in our past, but it continues to reappear whenever the parallel time room enters a reality where it still exists..." She paused to catch her breath.

"Darling..." She touched William and forced him to look at her. "Do you know now why I so protected you when you grew up? You gave yourself a chance for a life you never had! A father, a loving wife, beautiful children... You broke a curse that covered the family for generations! I had to wait years for you to be the son I had gotten to love back then! I wanted to tell you how proud I was of you, but..." Her ruby lips quaked as she shook her head. "I knew you'd remember none of it." 

"Who else knows of this?" William stood straight before her in angry defiance. The chill from the wind rushing through the old tomb numbed him to the bone.

"Your father, your Uncle Quentin..." Angelique closed the casket rather than look at her son's previous self. "Your Uncle Willie, Julia and Professor Stokes before they died, even Liz realized the truth and we never knew, but she didn't care. Your Aunt Carolyn... she was your first victim as a vampire in 1971!"

"Oh god..." William looked away.

"You were so frantic when she almost died!"

"How can you keep this from me!" William screamed at his mother as she relived the torture. So what if he had a past life in another potential timeline that no longer existed. Maybe he was his own reincarnation, but that he had been a vampire in that past life, a curse inherited from his father that died with him in the past; it was harder to accept. It just made him wonder what else had been concealed from him.

"There was no other way!" Angelique yelled back as she tried to implore his trust in her once more. "I and your father wanted to forget everything. It was a past we were both ashamed of! All we had was you, and a brand new wonderful future ahead of us that you had given to us rather than the dark one you predicted..."

"So many things now make sense..." William leaned against the wall. "Josette's ghost, dad's missing past, a lack of any history..."

"You sound just like Eliot when we told him." Angelique forced a tortured grin and pulled her son closer. She squeezed him tight as the tears began running over her flawless features once more. Her head rested against his as she knew what she had to do, and her heart wasn't really in it.

"William," She replied as her eyes looked into his. She looked deeply into his brown eyes deeper and deeper as her mind reached into his soul. "You have a beautiful wife and daughter at home waiting for you. You will forget any of this ever happened. It never happened. You will forget all of it..." A mother's tear dripped down her motherly features as she became forced to alter his memories of these events.

PART 8

Ally Collins braced herself in the door to the kitchen as she looked ahead. Her father-in-law was ahead of her sitting on the couch with his granddaughter on his lap. He was pleasantly reading to her as she moved closer to him.

"... And so Mister Rabbit, Mister Turtle and Mrs. Chipmunk walked away together as they all went to the Animal Day Parade." Barnabas grinned to tiny Georgia with her big brown eyes sparkling with juvenile exuberance. "The End…" He closed her storybook as she silently and precociously quickly pulled out another one. The content grandfather in the former vampire looked to his son's daughter and saw traces of both her father and her aunt in her. Barnabas felt him slipping back into the sensation of what it was like to be a father.

"She's not bothering you, is she, dad?" Ally stood over the two of them sipping her tea as she slowly lowered her pregnant belly into a chair.

"Course not..." Barnabas beamed at his wonderful grandchild. "Some of my fondest memories are of reading to Sara at her age. Of course, when William was her age, he corrected the words I couldn't pronounce."

"He did?" Ally grinned at hearing of her husband the childhood prodigy. "He still does that to me today." Her head turned as the rain pouring to earth entered the house through the open front entrance. Just ahead of it, Angelique escorted her son through the doors and wiped the rain from her eyes. The two of them dripped a bit as Ally started heaving her body up back up to rush to her husband. Barnabas helped Angelique himself with her wet coat as William looked around in a foggy state trying to remember where he was.

"William, honey..." Ally hastened to him. "Are you alright?"

"His car stopped near Eagle Hill." Angelique lied with a brief glance to her husband. "You may want to get him out of those wet clothes and into a warm bath." She shook her drenched hair as she pulled off her coat and dropped her purse.

"Ally?" William tried to recall his wife.

"Yes, I'm here." She led him up the stairs to their room.

"How did I get here?"

"Your mother brought you."

"That's funny..." He felt like his mind had been wiped clean and he was missing a few days. "I don't recall getting up this morning..."

Downstairs, Angelique beamed knowingly as she used Kleenex to dry her hair. Barnabas turned to her anxiously as their granddaughter waved a book between them. The proud grandmother lifted her grand-daughter up in her arms as Barnabas spoke openly before her.

"What happened?" Barnabas asked.

"He learned everything!" Angelique answered exhaustingly repentant. "He broke into the tomb, we argued... I altered his memories and Willie and Quentin are cleaning up the mess and destroying the clues in case it ever happens again. I do not want to live this ordeal again."

"Agreed." Barnabas sat in the chair across from the sofa. He looked around the room and pictured it back when Victoria Winters discovered this house as a potential home for her and Burke Devlin, but that was such a long time ago even for a former ageless vampire who had traveled through time himself. The house was so deserted and empty then, but now it was so warm and homey and comfortable as his son and daughter in law made it a home. He reflected a second on the events of his life both happy and tumultuous as tiny Georgia hugged her grandmother. Barnabas forced a grin to her naivety and envied her for it.

"I hope nothing like this ever happens again." Barnabas spoke as he heard movement upstairs.

"I never want to come this close again." Angelique caressed tiny Georgia. "We must take our secrets to our graves together." She spoke quietly in a whisper while Ally emerged from upstairs and entered the living room. She looked around a second and started back after grabbing the pad from near the telephone.

"Ally, is there a problem?" Angelique asked her.

"Oh, not really," The pregnant lady lawyer grinned charmingly. "Someone who read William's article wants him to check another psychic near Bangor." 

Barnabas and Angelique exchanged identical glances.

"Ally," Angelique sprang up after her still carrying her grand-daughter. "Can I talk to you a second?" She rushed up the stairs after her daughter–in–law.

END

POSTSCRIPT

It was a house that might have been considered opulent in its past, but today it was considered haunted. In the daylight, it appeared as just another deserted house obscured from the road by trees on the highway to Crabapple Cove. Today, psychic Rochelle Blaumberg sat at the bare kitchen table in the back of the house and debated moving back to Manhattan to be near her son and daughter. Greg Nash, one of her three cohorts in her psychic money-making scam, groaned upset and scattered the newspaper he was reading to the floor.

"Curse that sod-filled ghost-buster!" He spoke with an Australian accident. "Since his article, we ain't had one client!"

"And we've got eight lawsuits!" Joanie Smelter, their female accomplice, poured coffee from a chipped ceramic coffeepot. Her make-up was smeared from her rubbing and her wig rested in disarray on the counter.

"Maybe if we pact up and move south..." Rochelle looked up. "I just recalled this little house in Cape Side, Massachusetts that..." She paused from another psychic vision. She may have faked a lot of her spirit channelings, but her clairvoyant gifts were never more obvious than they were now. Something was coming her way, and it wasn't good...

"You two might want to get out of here." Rochelle started standing from her seat.

"What is it?" Nash looked to the front of the house. "Police?"

"If only we were that lucky." Rochelle backed to the counter. "We might need the Marines to save us... if only they could help."

There was a long crash from the front of the house. It sounded as if someone had knocked down the front door with a tank. Following the crash, the house groaned from a very powerful presence forcing its way into the the house. The horsehair plaster walls creaked, and the ceiling supports groaned from the presence. Rochelle dropped to the floor in fear as her accomplices watched the swinging kitchen light and dust settling from the ceiling. Bare cupboard doors popped open and a small picture crashed to the floor. The house was ready to fall in just as the small harmless visage of Angelique Collins appeared in the entance to the kitchen. She was beaming ear to ear, but her eyes beheld a note of obvious dissent. It was easy to tell from her arrival that someone was in trouble.

"Who the bloody hell are..." Nash stood up first and felt something invisible strike him hard. Angelique didn't look or touch him, yet something had lifted him up and tossed him crashing five feet out the back door through broken glass and splintered wood. Joanie Smelter clutched her chest in fear.

"Mrs. Blaumberg," Angelique looked over the table to the psychic sitting in fear of her on the floor. "I'd like to have a word with you!"

"Mrs. Collins..." Rochelle stood up nervously. "It is a very big honor..." She fought to clear her throat, looked out the window over the sink to Greg laying outside groaning in pain and inched along the wall in fear.

"A very, very big honor..." She continued. "To have such a prominent witch like yourself in my home… I mean, the stories you must have and... I met your son and daughter-in-law the other night; what a beautiful couple! Would you like some coffee?"

"She's a witch?" Joanie whispered to Rochelle.

"And a very dangerous one if crossed..." Rochelle whispered back.

"Mrs. Blaumberg," Angelique stood regally composed in her long white fall jacket extending down over her dark green dress. "You recently told my son something that caused my husband and I a lot of trouble and..."

"I did?" Rochelle shook in pain. Angelique may have looked young enough to be her daughter, but she also knew appearances were deceiving with someone like Angelique holding back all her Wiccan powers at the moment. "It was just a slip of the lip... I mean, I'm so not a threat to you and I'm not stupid enough to... Please don't hurt me!" 

"Truth be told," Angelique lightly lifted her head and looked around these squalid conditions. As Nash came crawling back into the house, she lightly gestured and a metal pan fell off the wall and hit him in the head to keep him in his place.

"When I started driving up here," Angelique continued. "My first instinct was to turn you into a cat and your partners into mice..." 

"Can she do that?" Joanie asked Rochelle.

"And still have enough energy to bring down the house!" Rochelle whispered back.

"I could have done all that without driving all the way here..." Angelique lightly adjusted her hair. "Nevertheless, I have mellowed over the last fifty years..."

"Fifty years?" Joanie refused to believe Angelique was that old.

"Thank you..." Angelique vainly accepted the compliment.

"She's actually way older..." Rochelle added.

"Back to my visit..." The ageless blonde witch grinned again. "I decided to let you go with a slap on the wrist providing you give all this up and go straight. After all, I'm sure your daughter would love it if you got to know your granddaughter, but... if I hear you're faking your psychic gifts for monetary gain again..." Angelique loomed over the medium cowering at her feet. "I'll have you living in a tree, eating nuts and picking lice from your big bushy tail. Do you understand?"

Rochelle and Joanie heard Greg groaning in pain.

"Yes..." Rochelle answered.

"Good..." Angelique beamed unthreateningly and stroked back her long blonde hair. "Besides, the spirits of the Haggerty's want you out of their house. "It seems you're giving the house a bad name." She looked to her invisible bodyguards. "Ben, Jeremiah, we're done here..."

Rochelle and Joanie couldn't stop their hands from shaking. As they watched Angelique turn and head out, they noticed traces of a large, rotund manservant and heavily-bandaged family heir both in spirit form following the ageless witch out of the house. She was a person they never wanted to meet again, and they both knew from experience that to cross her would mean a punishment they would never see coming until it was too late.

END


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